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Power Ups - The downfall of WWF

I've been playing WWF for several years now. I've been a huge fan and enjoyed countless hours of challenges from friends and new challengers. Over the last year, the overall quality of the game, the community and its entertainment value has declined. I attribute this primarily to the addition of the Power Ups or what I call built in cheats. I have sent feedback numerous times and never have I received a reply. The all time low is the "Swap+" feature that allows you to "swap tiles without losing your turn". I liken this to dipping your hand into the tile bag, when its your turn, while playing with someone when there head is turned. In otherwords cheating.

I get it that this is a way for Zynga/WWF to make money, but it totally trashes the competition and challenge factor that existed before the power ups where introduced. What you think will increase the popularity of the game and increase revenue will actually cause folks like me to quit and find another game that offers fair competition. I'm already planning to limit my games from 10-20 at a time, down to just a few with friends I trust. I hear stories of others doing the same. So answer me this Zynga, how does this increase the usage of the WWF app? I think its clear that it doesn't and if you aren't careful and don't act quickly, you will kill your app and any possible revenue stream.

I would welcome a discussion with your support staff or product development staff. I have ideas of how you can continue to offer paid for cheats and limit those to a small community of not competitive people, yet maintain the quality of the competition for the rest of us.

Comments

Zynga increased the price of the ad-free version of WWF six-fold. They have rolled out cheating features that can be purchased and used without your opponent knowing. They have raised the "cost" of the cheats AFTER users purchased the "coins"...
it almost seems like Zynga is doing some wierd experiment to load up WWF with as many obnoxious money making toxins as possible to see when "enough is enough" and players start leaving.
I've floated the idea of making ad-free WWF subscription based. That can benefit Zynga (predictable income) and users (having more influence so Zynga has to earn our subcrition renewal) I'd pay $1/mo or $10/year to have an ad-free, cheat-free version to play others in the same game.

@Cbadland , not a bad idea on the subscription, but I would argue that Zynga just needs to do the right thing and stop polluting the game. Most phone apps/games don't require a subscription. I paid for ad free, and they are attempting to engineer my thinking from a marketing perspective to buy cheats. Then charge for them......that is advertising. That ticks me off because I paid for "ad free".

I paid for the game as it was, not to have an added “cheat” feature.
If I knew they were going to ruin the game, I wouldn’t have paid for it, I would’ve uninstalled it and stuck to scrabble.
I, like others, have went from playing around 20 games simultaneously to only around 2 or 3. Now I’m giving serious consideration to playing none at all.

@MeLikemWords said:
I've been playing WWF for several years now. I've been a huge fan and enjoyed countless hours of challenges from friends and new challengers. Over the last year, the overall quality of the game, the community and its entertainment value has declined. I attribute this primarily to the addition of the Power Ups or what I call built in cheats. I have sent feedback numerous times and never have I received a reply. The all time low is the "Swap+" feature that allows you to "swap tiles without losing your turn". I liken this to dipping your hand into the tile bag, when its your turn, while playing with someone when there head is turned. In otherwords cheating.

I get it that this is a way for Zynga/WWF to make money, but it totally trashes the competition and challenge factor that existed before the power ups where introduced. What you think will increase the popularity of the game and increase revenue will actually cause folks like me to quit and find another game that offers fair competition. I'm already planning to limit my games from 10-20 at a time, down to just a few with friends I trust. I hear stories of others doing the same. So answer me this Zynga, how does this increase the usage of the WWF app? I think its clear that it doesn't and if you aren't careful and don't act quickly, you will kill your app and any possible revenue stream.

I would welcome a discussion with your support staff or product development staff. I have ideas of how you can continue to offer paid for cheats and limit those to a small community of not competitive people, yet maintain the quality of the competition for the rest of us.

@Cbadland said:
Zynga increased the price of the ad-free version of WWF six-fold. They have rolled out cheating features that can be purchased and used without your opponent knowing. They have raised the "cost" of the cheats AFTER users purchased the "coins"...
it almost seems like Zynga is doing some wierd experiment to load up WWF with as many obnoxious money making toxins as possible to see when "enough is enough" and players start leaving.
I've floated the idea of making ad-free WWF subscription based. That can benefit Zynga (predictable income) and users (having more influence so Zynga has to earn our subcrition renewal) I'd pay $1/mo or $10/year to have an ad-free, cheat-free version to play others in the same game.

@rasf74 said:
I paid for the game as it was, not to have an added “cheat” feature.
If I knew they were going to ruin the game, I wouldn’t have paid for it, I would’ve uninstalled it and stuck to scrabble.
I, like others, have went from playing around 20 games simultaneously to only around 2 or 3. Now I’m giving serious consideration to playing none at all.

We appreciate all your feedback, @MeLikemWords, @Cbadland, and @rasf74. The integrity of the game is something that we seriously taking into consideration before making changes and improvements. We believe that having the Power-ups added can help our players by providing options to get unstuck when they can't find any moves to make. Nevertheless, we'll have your sentiments forwarded to give our developers an idea of what to focus on while an experiment is underway.

That is a complete deflection from the issue.
We want the option built in to play others without power ups, but as you well know, no real enthusiast of the game will want to play with anyone else if they know the other has them.
Congratulations developers, your greed has totally ruined an otherwise great game.
If a player finds themselves stuck and can’t find a move to make, then tough, THAT is what the game is about.

Zynga does not appreciate nor understand their core base that has made WWF such a success for the company. Developer sanctioned cheats that can be purchased and used without an opponents knowledge is the antithesis of game “integrity”. “Powers Ups” are just ham fisted money grabs to secure more revenue on an already successful product. If Zynga really does respect the game’s integrity, please give an example of what you mean by using that word.

“Power-ups added can help our players by providing options to get unstuck when they can't find any moves to make“
Nonsense. You can always swap tiles or pass. I don’t much about American football, but if the Quarterback can’t find a receiver, they don’t stop the game and reshuffle players until someone is open. Why? Because that would RUIN GAME INTEGRITY.

Agreed, this is ridiculous. I only checked this forum to see if they were aware of all the spammers over the past week, was not aware they added stupid non-words like BFF and covfefe, nor these cheats. I'll have to delete the app. I loved scrabble since I was a kid. This is now a dumbed-down version that I've got no interest in playing.

Power ups? Just a way to cheat. I have never used them but have had a few "friends" I didn't know challenge me. Wow! One guy played a whole game using words 99% of us never heard of. Now I know how he was doing this. I have played WWF for years. My friends and I have an unspoken agreement not to cheat. It's pretty disheartening to see that our favorite game has sunk to such lows. BTW, I have never used any of your dumb down power ups and wouldn't disrespect my friends that way. You have messed up!!

May I submit a somewhat counter view .... The only mistakes I believe Zynga made with regard to power-ups is marketing and game statistics pollution. In my philosophical view, Power-ups created a new game, pure and simple, maybe even more than one new game depending upon how players make use of these features. If one thinks of what has occurred to be new game creation, the notion of cheating vanishes. But, in my view, because new games have been created, game statistics gathering should have been segregated.

On the latter, because the game statistics span over all game-types I can't tell what the statistics are telling me about my own progress, never mind what they may or may not now be telling me with respect to other players -and- I believe this to be true for all of us now unfortunately. If one cares about the challenge of playing well over the social and monetizing modification aspects of the app, this pollution can render the game uninviting to long-time players. I would strongly suggest that this be discussed and corrected. If Zynga is looking for volunteers to hold discussions with respect to this particular issue I'd be more than happy to participate.

On the former, I'll give but one example - free tile exchange. In the classic game, tile distribution is completely out of the hands of the players. This brings about the notion of luck or lack thereof as an unmitigatable risk factor (Game Theory reference). Before this feature came into being, I've heard untold numbers of complaints about tile distribution. When I saw this new feature come into being, my initial reaction was one of surprise. I had expected to Zynga to fix tile distribution (my belief is that the random number generator behind tile distribution is broken, for various reasons ....). Instead what I saw was an ability for players to register their displeasure; that is, if statistics on its use are being actively captured even if only for internal use. However, if one stops viewing this "new feature" as "cheating" and rather view it as yet another strategic component of which one must master (allowing one to have an impact on the mitigation of risk), things can become interesting for players rather quickly. Given a set of tiles in the rack, one can get to decide, even with a really fantastic rack, whether tiles ought to be exchanged before a move or before the next move. I've had experiences where I can score a 40+ point word but I'll be left with three T's. Before free tile exchange, I had no choice but to hold onto the 3 T's even though the current board was not going to allow me to get rid of them easily in future moves. From a strategic advantage if I can recognize such, I can elect to dump those T's. Is it cheating? Not if everyone can do it. But if everyone can do it, what happens in the long term in the game? What is the strategic value? These sorts of questions fascinate me. So, free tile-exchange has created a sense of new strategic mental-play that must be mastered, at least for me. Now, I do get that if all of these power-up changes can be had by all players without any player choice at play, what some might consider to be new strategic play to master can be viewed as cheating by others; hence as I said in my opening, I would have rather seen power-features appear as new game variants rather than all mashed together.

Ultimately in my view, Zynga should have bit the bullet and gone all-in on game variations. We already have games in different languages (a variant vector), we now have power-ups which can introduce new strategies if thought of properly (another variant vector), etc.... What we need in my view is choice regarding what games and what game-types we wish to play and statistics segregation so that those of us who care about how we fit into the world can actually tell what's going on. I do get it. If another underlying driver is Zynga's continuing attempt to further monetize WWF, questions regarding segregation et al loom large. Will segregation drive a fracturing of the community that makes it harder to judge growth, A/B testing, monitoring value, etc ... Sure. But I believe that's their job (to figure these factors in). The attempt to "keep things simple" by bolting what may be viewed as (mis)features onto the side of one game has its limits. We are telling you Zynga that with respect to some aspects of change we are becoming increasingly unhappy. If you continue to drive in this direction; that is, without game integrity in mind, folk will drop away. The question to me is, would you rather do something about this otherwise likely event before it occurs en masse or not ....

> @Cbadland said:
> Zynga does not appreciate nor understand their core base that has made WWF such a success for the company. Developer sanctioned cheats that can be purchased and used without an opponents knowledge is the antithesis of game “integrity”. “Powers Ups” are just ham fisted money grabs to secure more revenue on an already successful product. If Zynga really does respect the game’s integrity, please give an example of what you mean by using that word.

Sadly, their stock is up with the new CEO and these fees.

I wonder if they can keep the attention of the newer fans of WWF2 or the powered up WWF.

Their base of players has stayed and valued the integrity of the game.
In the end, the more they lose their base, the more unpredictable their future is.

@Cbadland and @M7MGM
Re:
“If Zynga really does respect the game’s integrity, please give an example of what you mean by using that word.
> I doubt they comrehend the term integrity and if so, couldn't care.”

Yep. I very cynically picked up on the “integrity” thing to. I call PR Bullshit.

WWF has lost its appeal as a game of interest to me. The power ups take away from using the mind. I’ve played for years, to exercise my brain but power ups is a form of cheating and that is destroying the game for me. I no longer seek new challengers and have been reducing my play only with those who rematch. When there are no longer any rematches initiated by others, I will leave WWF.